Violin Community News 2010, Op. 2

January 20, 2010 at 6:55 PM

-- After a short strike, lasting less than a day, Cleveland Orchestra musicians are back at work after a settlement with management which calls for two-year wage freeze through August 2011, followed by semi-annual wage increases of 3% and 2% in the subsequent years.
Here are related stories:

-- Violinist Kyung-Wha Chung, 61, will return to the concert stage this year after a five-year-hiatus with a finger injury. She is scheduled to play the Brahms Violin Concerto May 4 with the Philharmonia Orchestra at Seoul Arts Center the Beethoven Violin Concerto on Nov. 21 with the Cleveland Orchestra in the same venue.
For more on that story: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2010/01/143_58454.html

-- Attention teachers in Los Angeles: Violinist Mark O'Connor is training teachers in his new American string method, and he'll be at UCLA Feb.26-28, 2010. The Seminar on Violin Books I and II taught by veteran string teacher Pamela Wiley, and it includes a lecture/demonstration and performance by Mark O'Connor. For registration form and further information contact: pamdewall@yahoo.com 843-743-5322.

-- Last week Joshua Bell lent his hands to the financially struggling North Carolina Symphony donating his talents to a short recital at a private home as part of an effort to raise money for the symphony. Jim Romano won the concert for two dozen friends and patrons for a $10,000 donation.

-- UK's Classic FM is taking votes for favorite classics, and it looks pretty fun. Here's what they say: “Will the winner be Mozart who has had no less than a staggering 20 works in last years poll or will it go to one of England’s finest, Edward Elgar? Perhaps James Horner’s exquisite new score from Avatar might make a new appearance towards the top? Or will Vaughan Williams’ stunning Lark Ascending maintain its three year lead at the top? The battle has commenced, so nominate your favourite to decide who is going to win! " Visithttp://www.classicfmhalloffame.co.uk/ to vote by Jan. 31. The new Top 300 will be revealed on Classic FM April 2 to 5 2010."

-- The New York Philharmonic will take its first European tour with conductor Alan Gilbert from January 21 through February 4, with 13 performances in nine European cities: Barcelona, Zaragoza, and Madrid, all in Spain; Zurich, Switzerland; Frankfurt, Cologne, and Dortmund (the Orchestra’s debut there) in Germany; Paris, France; and London, England. Joining Gilbert and the orchestra on tour are soloists : pianist Yefim Bronfman, who will reprise Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and baritone Thomas Hampson, the Philharmonic’s Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, who will once again sing John Adams’s Whitman setting, The Wound-Dresser. Also on the tour programs are the European premieres of Magnus Lindberg’s EXPO, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for the opening this season of Gilbert’s tenure as Music Director, and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2, a work Gilbert and the Philharmonic have never yet performed together.